When the DEQE called a meeting at the State House with Harvard’s lawyers to schedule a hearing so the case could be reconsidered, about 15 Brookline and Boston residents barricaded the meeting room doors in protest. After capitol police were summoned and the meeting cancelled, it was held by telephone with Harvard threatening to take the governmental agency to court if its permit was denied.

After 186 hours of oral testimony that led to 7,300 pages of transcript documents, the DEQE approved MATEP’s construction in November 1980, provided that Harvard follow 32 operating conditions, including the creation of stations to monitor the plant’s emissions.

But the DEQE was only one in a series of hurdles the project had to clear. MATEP’s planners insisted that the plant be exempt from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) pollution regulations because of Harvard’s non-profit status. In December 1980, Bok wrote to then-Massachusetts Gov. Edward J. King seeking exemption from the act, which was granted on a probationary basis.

Community activists, seeing a ruling they thought they could overthrow, quickly pounced on the decision, arguing that Harvard was using its non-profit status to sidestep environmental regulations for a for-profit project. But the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the exemption in December 1981.

Meanwhile, Harvard had begun to move the diesel engines into their ultimate location, where local resident protesters stood with black balloons in hand—several were arrested.

But while the plant began to provide chilled water and steam in 1981, the engines—whose purpose was to produce electricity—could not yet be turned on, pending a final ruling from the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) on the DEQE decision, which had been appealed once again by local activists. Because the plant was only partially operational, its co-generation cost savings remained unrealized as MATEP’s price tag swelled to $230 million.

Finally, after several more hearings considering the potential health costs of the plant—4 people might die of lung cancer over 40 years, they concluded—the SJC ruled to let the plant operate, and the diesels were fired up, despite residents’ claims that Harvard was as “sick...[as] Nazi Germany.”

After 12 years, MATEP was finally operational, but at price of about $350 million—a whopping $310 million, or 775 percent, over budget.

Little more than a decade later, officials decided to rid themselves of the problem plant.

In 1995, members of the Faculty complained that MATEP had drawn too many funds away from academic pursuits, depriving the College of its resources. And administrators questioned whether the University should be in the power-plant business at all.

“Whatever our capacities are as a University, they do not really extend to great sophistication to running energy plants,” said then-University President Neil L. Rudenstine in 1998.

That year, Harvard sold its white elephant to Commonwealth Energy System for $147 million, roughly one-fourth of the plant’s construction costs, adjusting for inflation.

Worth the Energy?

During the 1970s and 1980s, as the MATEP saga wore on, the project faced mounting opposition from insiders and outsiders alike. Both University administrators and professors indicated their frustration vocally, especially as the price tag seemed to grow uncontrollably.

Former Vice President for Government, Community and Public Affairs Charles U. Daly says MATEP was the not worth the money and legal battles it cost Harvard.